IntroductionPSB
Speakers, aptly named after founders Paul and Sue Barton, have been
producing high-performance loudspeakers since 1972. Paul Barton, the
chief speaker designer, had his beginnings in high school putting
together speakers for college students. Now one of Canada’s most
reputable names in loudspeakers, PSB with Paul Barton at the helm,
continues the craft of speaker design that started 30 years ago. In
addition to Paul Barton’s passion and dedication to speaker design, PSB
has a close relationship with the National Research Council (NRC). The
NRC offers nearly a century of knowledge and test resources in the area
of psychoacoustics research that PSB has effectively incorporated into
their Image Series speakers. The midlevel price range of the Image
Series speakers affords precision sound reproduction to those with
limited budgets. The PSB Image Series speakers reviewed consisted of
the Image T65 main loudspeakers ($1099 per pair), an Image C60 center
channel ($449), two Image S50 surrounds ($749 per pair) and a SubSeries
6i subwoofer ($699), or just a shade under $3,000 for the complete
package.

Description
The
T65’s MDF formed cabinet sports a maple finish (also available in Black
Ash) that looks splendid next to the speakers’ titanium front façade,
which houses an array of drivers. Maple is not always my favorite
finish, because it often reminds me of all the furniture that my old
roommates would buy from IKEA. Luckily, these T65s, with silver grilles
and sturdy maple cabinet, looked stunning as I set them up in my
listening room. The three six-and-half-inch woofers are each
accompanied by matching two-inch ports, giving this vented speaker the
ability to lay down the bass when called upon to do so. The cones are
constructed of injection molded, metalized polypropylene with a rubber
surround. In addition to the woofers and ports on the front, the unit
has a one-inch ferro-fluid-cooled aluminum dome tweeter. To enhance the
listening experience of the high frequencies, the Image tweeter uses a
structure called a “Phase Plug” to expand and smooth out the frequency
response. Care was taken to protect the speaker drivers from incidental
contact. The woofers are all sunk into the front façade, so even with
the grilles off, the speakers are not likely to be impacted. The
tweeter has a cage around it, thus eliminating the threat posed by
children’s fingers.

The floor-standing T65 loudspeakers
are nicely sized when placed next to my Paradigm Signature S8s.
Standing 38-and-a-half inches tall, eight inches wide and 20 inches
deep, the T65 has nearly the same dimensions as the Paradigm. At 49
pounds, the T65 is less than half the weight of the S8, which makes the
handling of T65s much easier. The cabinet tapers towards the front and
the back, providing more character than the typical boxy profile that
seems to plague most speakers. Adjustable carpet spikes and rubber
leveling feet for hard floors screw into four plastic collars at the
corners of the speaker. Two sets of five-way gold-plated binding posts
allow for bi-wiring or bi-amping the T65.

The C60 center employs a pair of the same woofers, ports and tweeter
that its T65 sibling does. Horizontally oriented, this speaker is ready
to sit above or below your TV and be the centerpiece of your movie
audio content. The black ash wood finish of this speaker is matched
with a black plastic façade that houses the titanium-colored woofers.
Again, PSB has tapered the 25-pound cabinet at both ends to avoid the
blah, boxy feel that is associated with more budget-oriented speakers.
The C60 cabinet is 27-and-a-half inches across, eight-and-half inches
high and nearly 12 inches deep. A single set of five-way binding posts
can fit most speaker terminations that you may have. Black is the only
finish that is currently offered for the C60 speaker.

The
S60 surrounds incorporate bipolar design, with two faces each using a
slightly smaller five-and-a-quarter-inch woofer. As with the C60, the
same ports and tweeters are brought into play on the front faces of the
speaker. A slightly different finish is utilized for the S60 than was
used for the C60. A less natural-looking textured black ash finish is
used instead. White is also available to those in need of something a
little more cheerful than Darth Vader black. The back panel has
wall-mounting holes for the S60 and a single set of five-way binding
posts. The S60 cabinets are a little lighter than the center at 18
pounds, so wall-mounting or stand-mounting is not difficult. The S60s
are seven-and-a-half inches deep and stand nearly 13 inches high and
across. The fronts, center and surrounds are all magnetically shielded,
so your video will not be adversely affected by close proximity to
these babies.

Most
important, PSB has included the SubSeries 6i subwoofer to add shake,
rattle and roll to this home theater. Housed in a nearly cube-shaped
MDF cabinet, the 12-inch polypropylene woofer uses a 350-watt amplifier
to deliver impactful bass. The black ash finish of the cabinet is
complemented by a rounded plastic black front façade. This façade is
comprised of dual two-and-a-half-inch ports and a set of volume and
crossover controls. Conveniently located in the front of the unit, the
crossover can easily be adjusted from 50 to 150Hz. Most people will use
the LFE inputs and outputs to connect to their preamp, but those
looking to place this subwoofer in series with their speakers have
high-level inputs and outputs available as well. The large amp and
woofer are cleverly oriented in this housing, so that the footprint is
only 15 inches across, 20 inches tall and 19-and-one-quarter inches
deep. Using the provided carpet spikes or hard floor levelers, this
41-pound powerhouse can be placed in almost any room environment.

Set-up
For carpeted floors, much frustration can be avoided by electing to not
put the spikes on the speakers until you have determined the exact
placement and orientation of all the speakers. By sliding the speakers
around on the carpet, I was able to quickly place the front T65
speakers about 18 inches from the sidewalls and about 14 inches from
the front wall. By towing them in about 25 degrees, I was able to set
an optimal listening position for maximum imaging and high
frequency/midrange accuracy. The center did not come with a stand, so I
found an end table that was about two feet off the ground and again
about ten feet from the listening position. I located the surrounds on
the walls about five feet above the floor and two feet behind the
listening position. Unlike my bulky wall-mounted Polk LSiFXs, the S60s
are shallow enough to avoid a lawsuit from visitors knocking themselves
unconscious as they walk to their seats. The subwoofer worked nicely in
the back corner of my room, where it would deliver the most powerful
amount of bass without people stumbling over it. The T65s were bi-wired
with my Audioquest Mount Blanc cables and the rest used some bare-wired
14-gauge monster cable, since they could not accept the terminations
from my other bi-wired cables. You should check that your amplifier has
the juice to power these babies, since the T65s and S60s both have a
nominal impedance of six ohms.

Listening
Powered
by my Anthem A5 and Anthem AVM30 preamp, the PSBs had no difficulty
living up to their potential. I began the music listening segment with
something I rarely listen to, country music. Van Zant’s own flavor of
rock country music is embodied in their Van Zant II (Silverline
Records) album. The S60 surround speakers employ a bipole design and I
felt it was important to test the performance of this PSB system with
multi-channel DVD-Audio material. Bipole surrounds are great for
movies, since they have an even dispersion, creating a sound field that
gives the listener a sensation that the room is larger than it actually
is. The trade-off to this is that multi-channel music is optimized for
direct radiator style surrounds. “Oklahoma” begins with a gusty wind
whistling all around the listener’s position, circling from front left
to back right and around again. Thunder chimes into the scenery, as
does a police siren that moves across the front left to the center and
then the front right before finally fading in the opening guitar riff.
With all the hurricanes making the news these days, the simulated
tornado soundstage that the PSBs produced had me reminiscing about the
hurricanes I sat through on the East Coast. The transition of the
whistling wind from speaker to speaker around the room was superbly
reenacted by the PSBs. Pinpointing which speaker was most active at any
moment was difficult, giving the listener the illusion that there were
more than five speakers in the room. Obviously, my earlier concern
about sacrificing multi-channel performance with a bipole was unfounded
in the case of the S60s.

“Wildside” featured some hard
driving guitar riffs and a bouquet of percussion. While sitting on my
couch, I was rapidly enveloped with a blissful bath of transparent
high-frequency taps of the high hat. The taps chimed in and out of the
left side of the sound field with great detail. The excellent
performance from the T65 in the high frequencies was consistent with
other music samples throughout my evaluation. The vocals were numbed a
little in this song, lacking some punch and sounding laid-back. The
numbness was not consistent with all tracks, but the laid-back nature
of the speaker was more reproducible. Bass production from the T65s was
not as strong as my Energy C-5s, and lacked some chest-pounding impact,
as I would have expected. The bass was precise, just not as strong as I
prefer.

Mike
Patton is one of my favorite vocalists of all time. Not only can the
guy belt out opera-like lyrics, but he can also come up with the most
unimaginable sounds using his versatile voice. As the front man for
eclectic bands Mr. Bungle, Patton is responsible for much of the
creative energy in the band. In “Squeeze Me Macaroni,” Patton uses his
voice to create anything from loud dog barks to soft soprano serenades.
The smooth whispers from Patton arrived to my ears as lush as a
mother’s lullaby to her newborn child. The challenge for any speakers
playing Mr. Bungle is the rapid transition from soft to loud segments
within the songs. The T65 was not fearful of this challenge and
excelled at keeping pace with the ever-changing dynamic range of the
music. Mr. Bungle’s “Quote Unquote” began with a faint snoring sound in
the distance, punctuated by a loud crashing sound of a glass bottle
being broken. Again, the PSBs were able to tackle this rapid change
without sounding brittle or harsh at all. The advantage of the
laid-back nature of the T65s was that the speakers never fatigued my
ears and were consistently warm and sweet-sounding.

“Scent
of a Woman” (Universal Studios Home Video) features a tango scene that
is worthy of analysis. The violins were alive with richness and blessed
my ears with lush highs that seldom appear in this price category of
floor-standing speakers. The accordion and pianos contributions of low
and midrange clarity completed the sound stage. The PSBs have a
fantastic ability to image. This ability was demonstrated by the subtle
clicks of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade’s walking cane on the
concrete, dancing from the left to the right side of the sound stage.
Another example of the PSBs sound staging ability could be heard in
“Shrek 2” (DreamWorks). As Shrek’s wagon rides off into the distance,
you can hear Donkey singing “Rawhide” from when he begins the tune in
the foreground until it is a faint whisper on the horizon.

“The
Peacemaker” (DreamWorks) stars George Clooney and Nicole Kidman as they
both try to save the world from terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.
The rumble of the train compartment doors as they closed was pounded
into my chest by the SubSeries 6i. Countless explosions throughout “The
Peacemaker” reinforce the importance of a good subwoofer in any action
movie. Having placed the subwoofer in a corner close to the listening
position, there was plenty of high-impact bass for this film. Despite
the large amount of bass the SubSeries dished out, I found it seldom to
be boomy or overbearing.

The Downside
Most of my issues with these speakers are some commonsense matters. It
makes no sense to me why there are no wall or stand-mounting options
for the C60 center channel. There is also very poor clearance for the
binding posts on the surrounds and the center. If your intent is to
wall-mount these, non-terminated smaller gauge wire may be your only
option. The T65s are bi-wire capable, with two sets of posts, but the
center and surrounds are not. This is undoubtedly due to the cost of
the speakers, yet I feel they could benefit from the addition. The
terminal lugs on the T65s are not on par with the performance of the
speaker. They are very difficult to use with large spades and do not
accept the large-size banana plugs.

It
would be nice if they offered a dark wood (like rosewood) finish for
the speakers, and offered each finish for all the speakers, instead of
just the T65s. Maple was available for the T65s, but not for the C60 or
the other speakers. The bass impact was below average from the T65s for
music listening, in my opinion. With the SubSeries 6i in the system,
the deep bass was more evident, yet still weaker in overall punch than
other systems I have evaluated in this price range.

Conclusion
Having listened to many similar speaker systems in this price range, I
am very impressed with the value of the Image Series PSBs. There is
amazing high-frequency reproduction and it never sounded harsh to my
ears. This is unusual for this class of speaker. Throughout the
frequency range, I felt the sound was consistently precise and lush.
This speaker system does image well and creates a wide soundstage.
Although I did feel that the system leaned towards the laid-back side
of the presentation scale, many ears may actually prefer this. The deep
bass issues that I discussed earlier may be resolved to a degree by
adding another subwoofer, at least for movies. The PSB Image Series
speakers have delivered on their promise for a precise and
dynamic-sounding system at an excellent value and have raised the bar
for the competition.